370
PARTISAN REVIEW
than could be vouchsafed by the type of music emanating from
Vienna. This was not so clear at first, and it was the subject of lively
debate at the leftist arts groups-the Pierre Degeyter Club (specifi–
cally for musicians), the Rebel Arts Group, and the John Reed Club.
Composers of all political complexions attended the meetings.
Along with the Stalinists there were those of us who could not accept
the restraint on personal freedom and leaned toward Trotsky. And
it
did not seem odd that there were also political conservatives, as long
as they were musically avant-garde. For we naively assumed a certain
similarity between the aims of political and artistic progressives. 1
remember how in 1933 things changed overnight. Cowell was telling
us that the labor songs, the songs of oppression, must have the new
dissonances in them because their subject was the future, the new
freedom we would have. Then, of course, came the Moscow trials
and the censure of Shostakovich. The music of the future, the
workers' songs, would now have to be like Tchaikovsky, like
traditional folk song. One had to bring the message of the new order
to the people in a language they could comprehend, and this only
added to the dilemma 1 was already in as a composer. So many
possible choices! Tonality and Heinrich Schenker (1 was only
vaguely aware of Stravinsky'S role in this area, though 1 must have
had some inkling of the tendency through Copland's newest works);
the atonality I had felt comfortable with; and, finally, the obligation
to place one's music at the service of political change. It confused me
terribly, because it seemed you had
to
decide which door to open and
enter in order to be a composer. Simply wanting to satisfy a drive
to
write music, to live a life of music, was not enough. I needed time to
think these issues through, to find out what music was or should be
about.
Coppock:
Is that why you went to Harvard?
Berger:
Yes, in a way. In any case,
how
I went to Harvard had to do
with the WPA. I used to be at the library a great deal-the music
library on East 58th Street-and as a consequence I became quite
friendly with Miss Lawton, the librarian. One day she told me, "You
know, there's a project that they want done through the WPA of
getting a booklet out on all the American music for the dance.
Would you be interested?" Since I was in need of support, I naturally
was interested. "But you know," she continued, "you have to be on
relief before you can be hired by the WPA. " I was living at home, and
by that time my father had worked himself up from the South Bronx
to an apartment hotel on West 72nd Street. But 1 couldn't apply for
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